


Christmas Errands

by glorious_spoon



Series: Tumblr/Twitter Prompt Fic [50]
Category: Agent Carter (TV)
Genre: Case Fic, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-27 21:01:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22792153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/pseuds/glorious_spoon
Summary: The man-eating plants were an unexpected complication. The breaking and entering, not so much. Knowing Peggy, this all fell under the heading of routine household chores.
Relationships: Peggy Carter & Jack Thompson
Series: Tumblr/Twitter Prompt Fic [50]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1313993
Comments: 10
Kudos: 44





	Christmas Errands

**Author's Note:**

> A (very loose) interpretation of the following prompt on Tumblr:
> 
> _Holiday shopping with any combination of Jack, Peggy, and Daniel. h/c or casefic hijinks welcome; your choice of pairing(s) or gen._

“You know,” Jack said, yanking the knife free with a grunt of effort, “when you asked for help picking out a Christmas present for Sousa, this isn’t what I thought you had in mind.”

“Oh, such a fuss.” Peggy barely sounded out of breath, which was aggravating. The air seemed hot and close, although that was probably just his imagination, and possibly the stuffiness of two people breathing hard in a tight space. There was plenty of air in here, even with the slowly moving plants blocking the door. Probably.

The vines were the real concern. They didn’t exactly seem sentient, but they were way more mobile than any natural vines, and he’d nearly broken the blade off of his pocket knife hacking away at the one that had coiled around his wrist while Peggy was trying to break into the safe. He’d already lost his one good winter coat to the damned things. Their most recent target seemed to be taking his mad science to a level that even Howard goddamn Stark would have envied. The entire interior of his swanky mansion was filled with this unnatural greenery. Jack had seen a pair of Venus flytraps in the front hallway that could have swallowed a small dog whole. Maybe that was why the owner hadn’t interrupted them. Poor idiot bastard had probably already been turned into plant food. “I’m just saying, if I’d realized this was gonna be a jungle expedition, I’d have brought a machete. Or a gun.”

“Yes, well, I didn’t exactly expect—” Peggy broke off. “What was that?”

Jack paused. At first, he wasn’t sure what she meant, but then he heard it: footsteps clattering up the stairs, the sound of voices. The two men seemed to be talking normally, at least, evidently unaware of the two intruders, but if they decided to come into what had probably, at one point, been a cozy smoking room—

He took a shallow breath, shifting his grip on the knife as Peggy eased toward the door with catlike silence. Hopefully, she at least was carrying a gun.

This really wasn’t how he’d been planning on spending his night, although he probably should have guessed, when Peggy dragged him out of the office at 7:30 on a Saturday evening for a last-minute Christmas shopping expedition, that it would end in chaos.

The man-eating plants were an unexpected complication. The breaking and entering, not so much. Knowing Peggy, this all fell under the heading of routine household chores. Pick up milk and eggs at the grocery, drop off the dry-cleaning, burglarize the townhouse of a man suspected of a clandestine liaison with a covert Russian operative: just a day in the life of Agent Margaret Elizabeth Carter. 

At least they’d managed to get the safe open. Or Peggy had, anyway. He hadn’t asked what had become of the files, but he suspected that the bodice of her dress had gotten an extra bit of padding while he was distracted with the vines. 

The footsteps continued on down the hallway without pause, and Jack let out a slow breath across his teeth, then kicked out as a vine attempted to stealthily wrap itself around his shoe. “Think the coast is clear?”

“I certainly hope so,” Peggy murmured back, fighting her way over to lend him some assistance. The vines themselves were slippery, but there were sharp ridges of thorns that caught and tore at his skin and his pants and what had been a very nice pair of Italian leather shoes, and he didn’t really want to find out if the sap had any dangerous properties other than being sticky and unpleasant as hell to touch.

Between the two of them, though, they managed to shove the door open, tearing vines. Peggy stuck her nose out into the dim hallway, peering around, then pushed the door the rest of the way open and tugged Jack out behind her as another, thicker vine attempted to coil itself around his ankle. He stumbled, getting loose, and nearly slammed into the far wall before she caught him.

“Careful,” she hissed. 

“I’m _trying_ ,” Jack retorted, also in a whisper. The air was cooler out here; it made him aware of how overheated he was. There were more of the plants out here, but at least they mostly seemed to be confined to pots, although most of them were rustling in a distinctly unnatural manner. Not to mention the two guys who’d disappeared into the room at the far end of the hall; fortunately, that door was shut.

He glanced at Peggy, who was disheveled and smeared with green sap and grinning widely, because of course she was. The curtains in the window by her head were open and a soft snow was coming down. Looked like it would be a white Christmas, assuming they managed to make it out of here without getting eaten. “I hope to hell you got everything you need.”

“Well,” she said. “Nearly.”

Jack groaned--quietly--and fell into step beside her as she started down the stairs. Vines twined up the railings, and he hoped that it was just his imagination making him think that the whole structure was groaning under their weight. He didn’t think he breathed properly again until they were on the moss-stained marble floor at the bottom. “ _Nearly?_ ”

“Well, yes. I think we can definitively say that Doctor Simonsen’s botanical experiments are entirely out of control—”

“You _think_?” Jack yelped, ducking a massive hanging plant that swayed toward him, its pinkish head of spongy petals closing like teeth around there his head had been a moment later.

“--and the files you’ve just so graciously helped me recover should prove that he’s attempting to make a deal with the Russians. Do look out.”

Jack dodged another one of the hanging plants and palmed his knife, glancing anxiously behind them as Peggy pushed the front door open in a rush of snow. He’d lost his coat up there, but that was still a relief. “Aces. Good for us, always a pleasure to spend my Christmas Eve almost getting eaten by rogue science experiments. Let me guess, we’ll be rounding off the evening with a gun fight, or maybe a nice diving expedition in the East River—”

“Don’t be absurd, Jack,” she said cheerfully. The humor dancing in her eyes warmed him unexpectedly, even as the chilly wind cut through his jacket. “As I told you back at the office, I still need to pick up Daniel’s Christmas gift. And I suspect that our spare room will be a better place to spend Christmas Eve than your hotel room. Or your office couch, for that matter.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Jack grumbled, but he followed her down the front steps without further protest. “Alright, fine. You’re paying for the cab, though. And a new coat. I liked that one.”

“Naturally,” she said. “It’ll be my Christmas present to you.”


End file.
